Epicharmus seems to have combined with this abstruse philosophy a strong vein of comic shrewdness and some turn to scepticism (Cicero, Epistol. ad Attic. i. 19): “ut crebro mihi vafer ille Siculus Epicharmus insusurret cantilenam suam.” Clemens Alex. Strom. v. p. 258. Νᾶφε καὶ μέμνασ᾽ ἀπιστεῖν· ἄρθρα ταῦτα τῶν φρενῶν. Ζῶμεν ἀριθμῷ καὶ λογισμῷ· ταῦτα γὰρ σώζει βροτοὺς. Also his contemptuous ridicule of the prophetesses of his time who cheated foolish women out of their money, pretending to universal knowledge, καὶ πάντα γιγνώσκοντι τῷ τηνᾶν λόγῳ (ap Polluc. ix. 81). See, about Epicharmus. O. Müller, Dorians, iv. 7, 4.
These dramas seem to have been exhibited at Syracuse between 480-460 B. C., anterior even to Chionidês and Magnês at Athens (Aristot. Poet. c. 3): he says πολλῷ πρότερος, which can hardly be literally exact. The critics of the Horatian age looked upon Epicharmus as the prototype of Plautus (Hor. Epistol. ii. 1. 58).
[874] The third book of the republic of Plato is particularly striking in reference to the use of the poets in education: see also his treatise De Legg. vii. p. 810-811. Some teachers made their pupils learn whole poets by heart (ὅλους ποιητὰς ἐκμανθάνων), others preferred extracts and selections.
[875] Pindar, Nem. vi. 1. Compare Simonidês, Fragm. 1 (Gaisford).
[876] Pindar, Olymp. i. 30-55; ix. 32-45.
[877] Pyth. iii. 25. See the allusions to Semelê, Alkmêna, and Danaê, Pyth. iii. 98; Nem. x. 10. Compare also supra, chap. ix. p. 245.
[878] Pindar, Nem. vii. 20-30; viii. 23-31. Isthm. iii. 50-60.
It seems to be sympathy for Ajax, in odes addressed to noble Æginetan victors, which induces him thus to depreciate Odysseus; for he eulogizes Sisyphus, specially on account of his cunning and resources (Olymp. xiii. 50) in the ode addressed to Xenophôn the Corinthian.
[879] Olymp. i. 28; Nem. viii. 20; Pyth. i. 93; Olymp. vii. 55; Nem. vi. 43. φάντι δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων παλαιαὶ ῥήσιες, etc.
[880] Pyth. x. 49. Compare Pyth. xii. 11-22.